Arsène Wenger has said he is not to blame for Arsenal’s failure to reinforce
their squad over the summer.

On the eve of the new Premier League season, Wenger admitted his squad was “a bit short”, but reiterated his stance that the club are prepared to spend if – and only if – the player is right.

Arsenal have seen approaches for Luis Suárez, Wayne Rooney and Gonzalo Higuain fall by the wayside. The latest transfer target to slip through their fingers is Bayern Munich midfielder Luiz Gustavo, who completed his move to Wolfsburg on Friday for a fee of around £17 million, while Wenger confirmed that Mikel Arteta could be out for six weeks with a thigh injury.

But Wenger argued that there was more to completing a transfer than simply stumping up cash.

“The issue is that the club sometimes does not want to sell at any price,” he said. “In the example of Suárez and Liverpool, you have to calculate that if they want to get into the Champions League, who are their rivals and do they want to sell to us?

"Unless they need the money or have a clause or something, things do not always work just because you put the money up.”

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Wenger said the perception that he was resisting the board’s attempts to strengthen the squad was false. “Of course, it’s unfair,” he said. “Why should I resist? I just defend the idea that you spend the money you have and not the money you don’t have.

“If you want to describe me as greedy and you live with me, you would see that I am not. I am rather generous. I fought my whole life to pay players well. But we had to go through a period when we had to look at the money that we spent.”

There has been a marked shift in Wenger’s tone from the bullish days of early summer, when the club allowed themselves to be linked with a host of fine players from across Europe. Now, Wenger said, that list was down to “not many”, and the message coming out of the club appears to be that while new signings are still likely, no guarantees can be made.

“If you bring me tomorrow players who are better than those we have, I promise you we will look at them,” he said. “You cannot say that Jack Wilshere is a super player and then ask why we do not buy better players than him. There is a shortage of top, top talent, and many clubs who have money.”

Wenger cited the example of Borussia Dortmund. “People praise Dortmund for reaching the Champions League final, but their most expensive transfer is not very impressive,” he said. Dortmund have spent more than £40 million this summer.